Kerala gold smuggling: HC rejects Swapna Suresh plea seeking quashing of conspiracy cases

The cases were registered on charges of provocation to cause a riot and criminal conspiracy. One of the cases was registered on a complaint by CPM MLA and former Kerala minister K T Jaleel.

Jaleel had alleged that Suresh had raised defamatory statements against the chief minister, the government and him concerning the smuggling case. Swapna Suresh, after giving a statement as per section 164 of CrPC in a court in Kochi, had alleged that CM Vijayan had taken a bag full of currency to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2016 with the help of a diplomat. She also raised allegations against Vijayan’s wife Kamala and daughter Veena.

Suresh had moved the high court two months ago seeking to quash the FIRs registered against her for allegedly conspiring to cause a riot in the state through her recent revelations. In her plea, Suresh alleged that she was falsely implicated in the case and claimed that former minister K T Jaleel had filed the complaint after she had given information about his “illegal activities” before the court.

Meanwhile, Suresh had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June seeking a CBI probe into “the involvement of Kerala government” in the scandal.

After a case of 30 kilogram of gold smuggling from a diplomatic cargo addressed to the UAE Consulate-General Office in Thiruvananthapuram came to light in July 2020, Swapna Suresh, a former executive secretary at the UAE Consulate-General’s office, emerged as a prime suspect for her role in forging Consulate documents to illicitly enjoy diplomatic immunity for gold smuggled from the Gulf.